Well, I didn’t win (of course) but Blisstree reader Cathy Parker did! Congrats to her! Cathy was chosen at random and said in her comment, “I do really need to relax more and this could… take… me… away.”

I hear you!

For those of you that didn’t win, I came across this article on inexpensive ways to relax, and thought the tips were just wonderful. After all, who among us doesn’t need to relax? I can’t think of a single person. And in this economy, we can’t always fly off to some exotic location or even take a trip to the spa for that matter. But you know what? You don’t need to. Relaxing can be as simple as remembering happy times from the past. You know all those scrapbooks you spend hours putting together? Take the time to look through them. Doing so will help you change your pace and realize what life is all about.

Another suggestion was to start a garden. This is a new one for me, but I’m giving it a try. I don’t have a green thumb, but I do enjoy seeing various plants come up. There’s something very refreshing about putting a bulb or seed into the ground and watching it grow months later. And bulbs are a very frugal way to go about it. Food for thought!

Image: sxc.hu.

Post from: Blisstree

Ways to Reduce Stress

I’m sure many of you can relate to this:  some days you just feel like your life is on permanent fast forward.  Everything goes too darn fast.  And yet, there’s still no time.  No time for hobbies, for love, for real relationships… Certainly no time just to sit and do nothing (without feeling guilty!)

This kind of hurried life can cause plenty of problems, too.  For me, it added to health issues.  I had to slow down because my body just couldn’t keep up.  For others, it may mean you don’t have the same quality relationship with your spouse, or even that your kids are as stressed as you are.

I caught this interesting article that talked about the effects of a life zipping by too fast, and one of the things it mentioned was Hurried Woman’s Syndrome.  It said:

“Women who try to do too many things at once—juggling work with hectic home life—complain of chronic stress, tiredness, weight gain, sleep problems, guilt, knackered self-esteem.

They suffer, according to Dr. Brent Bost, from hurried woman syndrome.”

The remedy for this is simply slowing down.  But it’s easier said than done.  It takes a concentrated effort.  But once you master it, you won’t want to go back.

I had to adjust my life at first because of health reasons.  But now, I protect my time and that of my family.  I don’t over schedule.  In some cases, that’s meant we don’t socialize as much as we used to.  We had some friends that we saw once in a while that constantly caused us stress.  But we worked to fit them into our social calendar.  Now, we don’t.  (And haven’t missed them.)

Instead, we focus on those rare friendships that are special.  We spend quality time with people that care about us.  We work to make our holidays less hectic.  We even use caution when it comes to getting into new TV shows or hobbies.    We also purposely don’t schedule activities as often as we did before.  We choose plays or flea markets (or whatever we truly love) over those things that would have us stuck in traffic and feeling rushed.  We rarely schedule anything for during the week.

Basically, we guard our schedule as if it’s the most precious thing around.  It’s not something I’ve always done.  But now that I have this mindset, I really see the difference in how much calmer I am.

What about you?  Are you suffering from “Hurried Woman’s (or Men’s) Syndrome”?  If so, what steps can you take to slow down?

Image from Morguefile.

Post from: Blisstree

Avoid Hurried Woman’s Syndrome